001Moving right into it. Uh Mark is absent and Katie is absent, but we do have a quorum. And move right into the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, moving into consent agenda. There will be one item we'll still have to take into um close session, but do I have a motion to approve consent agenda? >> Make a motion second. >> All right. All in favor? >> I I >> All right. No unfinished business. No. Moving right into new business. >> Okay. We'll uh we'll move into to new business and uh board members. Items A, B, and C uh deal with our annual budget and our budget acknowledgement
002and motions that will come forward. As just a brief reminder, our annual meeting, we showcase the vast majority of our budget and our anticipated expenditures and revenues as they were setting up through the uh notices from the state. And today is the the date in which we formalize the u annual budget for our community. So Mr. Markour will lead us through the uh the numbers in which that are recognized if there are any substantial changes, differences, and or questions on each of our next three items. Joe. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um tonight is really an additional recap from our September 10th meeting where we shared our budget hearing. We recorded it, created that booklet, and it was really our point of initial discussion for the 2526 budget that you will have for potential approval
003tonight. But really, the budget's an ongoing process. There are lots of things that happen throughout our meetings that get the budget to that point. It's not a sole admin discussion. It's not uh myself or just Mr. Black. It's even all of you. and our staff members and our other leaders in our buildings to really build that budget and provide our educational opportunities for our kids. So, I want to go through a few things tonight that I think are important to share because it is good to always be knowledgeable of our budget. We want to be able to share the school district's budget whenever anybody asks us to do that. as a public entity is it's really important to be able to share what we know and it helps our community members understand how our school
004district is operating because they are property taxpayers and I expect that they want to know. So I always welcome questions. Um on the topic summary you can see there are a few things that I think are key components of this year's final levy and budget for to approve tonight. The first is we have $773,722 less in equalization aid this year. That's not a surprise. When the state budget um was signed for the 2527 bianium, the appropriation for equalization aid was not increased. So that means all school districts across the state had the appropriation from the last bianium carrying forward. And it's all related to how you were spending and if additional districts are are spending more and they also might be getting more students or a lot of variables are going on. If the aid
005pot doesn't increase and your variables are declining enrollment or you're not spending more than other school districts might be, you're going to see less aid. There are other variables in it as well, but those are really big factors in it. So, when you have less equalization aid, it doesn't mean you have less revenues in your budget. It's a teeter totter of your property tax. So that $773,000 less equalization aid is then picked up by local property taxpayers. So all school districts in the state have the same process when they approve the levy and many of them are sharing the same information. 71% of school districts have less equalization aid in this year's budget. So that was a decision as part of the bing process. Also, um it's important to share that we did receive an
006increase on the revenue limit of $325 per pupil and that allowed the revenue limit to increase by $375,000. So, that is helpful to your budget because it isn't your revenue limit is 90% of your available revenue. So, when that grows, that helps your budget. On the second page, uh something that we talked about at the budget hearing and even last spring when we were talking about how important it was for categorical aid as it relates to special education to grow to help offset those costs that increased. So that add approximately $675,000 of revenue to fund 27 which then can reduce the transfer from fund 10. So fund 10 is your general operations, fund 27 is your special education fund. And they separate the two even though they are our general operations because there are funding
007mechanisms specifically inside fund 27. So when you separate them and there's an accounting structure for it, it helps the state know what is eligible for that additional age. That's why they have the fun separate. So instead of the money going to the revenue limit a few years ago when the bianium increased it went on the all the revenue limit we got some on the revenue limit and we got some in categorical aid related to special ed. So those are the two main drivers of increased revenue in the budget. Property valuation is important because it relates to your taxable properties inside your municipalities. Property t um property growth and property taxes go together because the value of your property relates to how much of it is taxed. So if your property values are going up and
008maybe a neighbors is going down their property value, you would see more property taxes that you paid. Everybody's home and property is is different and you can see that in some supporting documents in the back. This private school voucher program included a almost a $1.4 million aid deduction and those are students who enroll and qualify in a private school voucher program. The reason why that's important for us to know is because we are the taxing entity for the private school voucher program and that is added to the levy and it is a component of the levy since 25 or 2015 16. The challenge in that is every school district also is different on how the private school voucher program impacts them. And when you're like us and we have over a hundred students who are
009involved, there's more of a voucher deduction there. And it's hard to explain that. We're just the taxing entity for it even though it's part of the the state's um approval process. We are not aided 100% back for that cost. So that's why there is a mismatch of the impact of the le. If it was a true one forone program, they probably pull it out and make that happen. But now that it's been in for over 10 years, we know that you and maybe others have shared with legislators, it would make sense to have that separate because it is it is confusing to share that part of our levy and what you see in your tax bills is payment toward the voucher program. Um, also school levy tax credits are on your tax So, when you
010pull it up, you'll see um school levy credits. Those reduce your taxes for schools, but it doesn't show that as a net. It's just a credit that you receive on your taxes. But it's important to see because sometimes it's a few hundred bucks that you'll see on the value of your properties that reduce your taxes. When we get the tax bills in December, I'll bring an example to and talk about it again. Uh last, you know, I know that the budget sometimes when you talk about these variables seem like it makes it harder to explain and that's just part of what we do as a school district. There's a lot of mechanisms that are inside a school district budget, but we really feel that what we are doing here in New London is best for
011kids. We're able to do a lot every day between our our three-year-olds that come a few days a week to our seniors who are at the high school and all that goes on with our instructional day and then our co-curricular and extracurriculars. There's a lot of great things to be proud of as a school district in our budget. You know, that said, I I truly understand that the influence of the state budget is hard to communicate because I'm a person where you don't you don't blame it on something. You just say it like it is and share that. But it's hard when there are external factors that you as a board when you approve a budget are having to work through where when you get a tax bill and you're not if you're not listening
012to the meetings or you're coming to a meeting or you're really knowledgeable about this. It's hard to understand telling someone that well equalization aid went down $770,000 so then you're taxed for it. They just they don't really probably know what that means. And then a lot of a lot of schools are talking about the voucher program. And even though there's more increases there than they are in the public education budget, I just look at it's that's what the numbers are. But when you tell someone that the voucher program is $1.4 million and we tax for it, they're they probably will say, "Well, that doesn't make any sense." But it's just it's just the way it works. So sometimes I feel like as a board when we talk about how important it is to have local
013control, but you have external factors that impact the budget, it makes it really challenging to truly feel that way sometimes. And even when I lastly to when I think about the revenue limit and when you've met with legislators in the past and have shared why would another school district get to spend 134 $15,000 on our revenue limit and we get to spend $11,650. Why would that be different? Well, it just is. And even though you have advocated for that in some of your meetings, it didn't happen. But it did happen in the prior benium and we'll keep asking for that equity in the budget just one second. So in summary of that is I'll share the rest of it will go quickly. Um we appreciate questions from our community and if you have someone that
014you really feel like is frustrated because of something they don't understand or don't know, have a call us. We want to talk to them. We don't run from frustrations. Most of the time people don't call and say, "Well, thank you for my tax bill. Please send me another." It's not how it works. They want to know why it went up and that doesn't seem right. And I get it. When you get that two, three, four, five, six or whatever, plus thousands of dollars in that December, January mailing, it's very frustrating at times because you got to come up with that money to pay for it. So, we do encourage people to call us and we'll do our very has to answer some questions. In your packet, you also have some supporting documents. It shows the
015voucher impact and how the calculation works. It shows that the aid deductions are increasing faster than we're getting aid and our increases on our revenue limit. Again, that's not something you controlled. It was the how the bianium works. I did put one additional hand out on your desk because I made an error. Um, I put them when I did the key components, I forgot to update one of the last columns. It doesn't change any of your numbers in the budget approval, but I wanted to tell you that I made a mistake on not replacing the prior year number. It was related to the mill rate. The mill rate is 557. When we did the budget hearing, we had 555 on there, but I updated all of the charts that we've used in the past. So,
016Historical review sometimes happens by community members. They're on our website. They're able to look at and I like to show history so that way as someone's looking at it, they have information to look at. Bless you as they, you know, look at the data and information. Then the rest of the items in the packet are the required public publication format and then also our adoption and that directly relates to your motions. Also I put the revenue limit uh calculation there along with the equalization aid. And then the last item in the packet shows the municipality breakdown of the property uh growth and also how that impacted their levy. You can see some municipalities didn't have the property growth that others did. So what that means is those municipalities have higher property value. So may see
017a different levy than a different municipality. But our mill rate is 557 and that is how the the calculation is. But sometimes if your value grows faster than someone else's, your levy is not the same. So, if Nate and I both owned a $200,000 house and we lived in different municipalities, it's possible that our levy total tax bill could be different. That's that's how the the valuation process works. But for the most part, the average taxpayer is going to see uh an increase on their taxes this year because of the mill rate going up and the levy. And that's related to the ization aid reductions. Are there any other questions that I could help answer for you? Just uh comment and feel free to to comment and correct me if I'm wrong on it, but
018uh in spite of the, you know, the fact that the mill rate went up, uh we're still at 557, which I I don't know how that compares around the state, but I know there are quite a few school districts that are more than double that in their mill rate. Uh, and to compare it, I bet I first came on this board in 2016 and our mill rate then, uh, if I remember right, was pushing towards 10. uh I could be wrong but it's it's you know quite a bit more and and our trajectory has been down a mill what that how I process that is that if we run into a big financial trouble in the future we're not sitting in a bad way for um for an operating mills compared to a district that
019might already be assessing 12 mills and if they're hitting financial trouble, you know, I mean, this this is a is a very good picture. Even though we went down uh we went up from 5.33 to 5.57 because the state froze the uh equalization aid. Um it's still pretty darn low uh in comparison to u uh generally school taxes in a lot of municipalities are the biggest taxes. They're they're not in our in our area. Um the county's taxes are are much higher. The city taxes are higher. Uh so you know I think I don't have a bleak you know I know I know yes. It's hard to explain the the um the the small percentage of money that comes out for the u for the uh voucher schools. Uh but not a lot of that
020comes comes away from the school district because we're we're also increasing the levy to collect that. Um and so I I don't have a dim view of the fact that it it's inched up this this year that It's looking bleak for us because I know that our taxpayers are they don't want us wasting money but they do want good education and um uh I believe that u by by pushing this mill rate down and the state has helped on that too with some of their some of their programs but uh the board and the administration has been very frugal and that puts us in a good position. if we need to do something, you know. So, that's that's my comment. Am I am I off in that, Joe? I mean, >> you're correct. Page 20
021in your packet really gives Chris's comment accuracy because he's right. Did you say you came on in 2016? >> Yes, it was um 983 that year and the state average is 709 uh last year. We're not sure what it is um for right now because every school district's doing the same thing we are right now but once that's up we'll know that so I would agree with you that statistically we are lower uh the mill rate with the state average and if the board would choose because of funding challenges you would be in a position to share that that's accurate you're below the state average in millillage all right nobody else has any comments comments. I just have a follow on a different subject on there. Uh what is we we we moved some fund
022balance into capital improvements, correct? >> Yes. >> How much was that again? Can you remind me? >> 150,000 or something. Yes, it it would be on page seven. It shows the unodudited 2425. The increase was 281,000, but we also had um interest revenue in there as well. And I without pulling my computer up, I can't remember, but it was >> okay. >> About 225,000 >> 225. So then uh uh so where did our fund balance ended up uh after we pulled that out as after the uh all the figures came in? >> Yes, our fund balance is at 4.6 million which is 14%. >> 4.6 million and it's >> 14%. And our fund balance would have been another two 225 had we not moved it to the All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> All
023right. I'm looking for a motion to approve the 202526 budget for all funds in the amount of 38,363,927. Um, per the list. >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> A second. >> Roll call vote. Yes. >> Haven. >> Yes. >> Chris Martinson. >> Yes. Andy Thor. >> Yes. >> Uh we don't need to discuss any further on B or C. Okay. Um looking for a motion to approve 202526 uh general operations levy in the amount of 10 million $444,582. Um do I have a motion? >> I'll make that motion. >> Have a second. >> I'll second that. >> Roll call. >> Thor. >> Yes. >> Ny. >> Yes. >> Chad Hman. Yes. >> Chris Martinson. >> Yes. >> Do you wish to speak to C? >> No. Okay. Review and potential approval
024of 202526 community service levy in the amount of 130,000. Do I have a motion on that? >> I'll make a motion. >> Second. >> We'll call on that. >> Yes. Andy Thor. >> Yes. First name. >> Yes. >> John, >> yes. >> And Chris, >> yes. >> All right. Moving right in to D. Reviewing potential approval of resolution authorizing a taxable tax and revenue anticipated promisary note for cash flow purposes in an amount not to exceed 3,225,000. Joel, if you want to discuss that one. >> Yes, this is an annual action of the board around this time of the year. We need to have access to a line of credit to make sure that we have the available funds to pay our bills because of the timing of when we receive our revenues. We don't
025receive a majority of our revenues after the property tax collections, but our fiscal year already starts on July 1. So that is why we send out um the proposal. You can see in there First State Bank and Wolf River Bank are the two to consider tonight. We are recommending Wolf River Bank Community Bank because they are lowest. We've used First State Bank in the past, but 5.99% is lower than 6.25. So it makes sense to credit. All right. You want those in two separate motions? >> Yes. >> Okay. Looking for a motion on D, which is the what I what I just spoke in the review potential approval of res resolution authorizing a taxable tax and revenue anticipary anticipation promisary note for cash flow purposes in an amount not to exceed 3 3,225,000. >> I'll
026make a motion to approve that. >> Okay. Do I have a second? I'll second that. >> Uh, roll call vote. >> Chris Martinson, >> Yes. Andy, >> yes. >> Gre, >> yes. >> And John, >> yes. >> All right. Um, any further on that order? Okay. Moving into E. Um, looking for a motion and potential approval to award that line of credit to Wolver Community Bank in the amount not to exceed 3,225,000. I have a motion. >> I'll second it. Call >> John Hman. >> Yes. >> Chris, >> yes. >> Andy, >> yes. >> And >> yes. >> Thank you. And moving on to F, second reading and potential approval of revised policies. Scott. >> Yep. Uh board members, uh there's been no change from our previous discussion. I have not had any feedback outside
027of the the previous board meeting. Uh looking for the very simple, modest changes to 133 filling board vacancies and 163.1 board of education membership. >> Do I have a motion? Make a motion. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? So move. All right, moving on. Review and potential approval of policy administrative guidelines Wisconsin Act 20 grade level advancement and retention. board members. Uh our policy committee met uh via board direction to address the potential guidelines for the uh state statute which asks districts to develop retention advancement policy in reference to act 20. Um what you have in front of you to to review is the policy committee's recommendation. Uh the recommendation was brought forward with feedback from our administrative team, our director team, and then obviously our our
028board feedback um our committee feedback from their research on what our local opinion and best practice would relate to. Um, specifically, there was discussion built around the good cause exemptions on page 32 and addressing potential students that if they were to meet those such expectations based on those five parameters and how that would relate to participation and potential grade retention andor advancement at that grade three level. Committee members, any feedback outside of our discussion or what's been shared? >> I just maybe have have a comment. I I really want to thank our people services director for um sharing her concerns, but being willing to work for the with the committee on their concerns. Uh the concern was that u uh there are sometimes special education um students who may not have an intellectual disability per
029se and be exempt from state testing but have significant issues that they should be exempt from being held back. And of course in the committee we had concerns. We didn't want to create an exception that had a wide open gate for uh just exempting anybody that had an EIP. and it we went back and forth and hammered it out and with help from the state of Mississippi, not that they called us up or anything, but we looked up their their law and their policy and and uh this uh we came up with something that I believe works for everybody. It it certainly works for me as the author of the initial wording of this of this uh polic of the good cause exemptions in it and uh as far as I know it works for
030for Sarah and and the staff, right? So, thank you very much. We spirited cooperation. All right. Looking for a motion to approve administrative guidelines for policy 345.5 as presented. I have that motion. I'll make the motion. >> I have a second. >> I'll second it. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion moves. The followup comment on that uh John is that now as we move forward uh as an administrative team in a district we we will start sharing the the guidelines uh you know often infrequent as we shared uh prior to the implementation of this process at our one of our fall engagement activities here on November 6th uh where we talked about literacy and the literacy greatness of literacy. This will be one of the topics we share with the community members
031that are there that night. So, we will start sharing that message >> and I can't help tying it into our our literacy efforts in acts act 20 and the ad hoc committee that came up with recommendations to increase our our reading proficiency. Um because the the states that do this and have this um robust retention policy, third and fourth grade, the people that run those departments say that it it doesn't work nearly as good if you don't have that third and fourth fourth retention. So this isn't just about oh let's go back to an oldfashioned way and start retaining kids. It's about how do we improve our literacy and uh and it fits. I I believe I think it's a great thing. >> All right, moving on. Joel, >> I'll start the conversation. John, that's
032fine. Uh so board members uh just to give a quick overview of where we are with our the next two items in fact health insurance and dental insurance renewal of conversation flows from one to the other would be very appropriate within that our compensation committee recently met uh and started strategizing about our renewal for 2026 mainly around the the health piece and uh just to be open and transparent. It's a difficult renewal this year that we're looking at and the committee's been working very hard to strategize what is appropriate, what uh what makes sense and um some opportunities to to have some real good conversation. The committee thought that bringing it to the board typically this is when we would approve our insurance plan health for the next upcoming year. Uh but we're not quite
033ready. We're not quite there because of the as I said some of the challenges that this renewal presents and just wanted to give our board just an opportunity to to share feedback. Mr. Marker will be sharing some highlights from the renewal as we know it now and maybe some preliminary discussion of how our committee will move into conversation on Friday. But we're all part of it and uh you know have to think about you know why did it go up and so on and so forth and the cost and expenditure much as Joe was talking about. uh the budget development and how that fluctuates and in many ways it is what it is. You know when numbers come forward a number is a number and then on our end you know as fiscal agent to
034be able to um do what's best for the district do what's best for our employees as well and be able to support the operations of a of a sound you know entity business entity school entity with that. So Mr. Markworth any highlights you'd like to share? >> Yes. Um this is really tonight to just share the information um and talk a little bit about it amongst the board. John and Mark and Andy are part of our total compensation committee and we wanted to bring this to discussion tonight. So it has really two meetings. Feedback from you if you have it then we meet again as a committee and then bring forward a recommendation to consider at the next board meeting. And as Mr. just shared we are in a difficult scenario with our renewal because
035of utilization. Uh we have a calculated renewal increase of about 22% from Robin Health Partners and that is primarily due to utilization. You can see that if our loss ratio is about 150% that means for every dollar collected a$150 is being paid out in expenditures and that has been the case for several months in a row about 18 months and that's why even last year at this time the committee and the board were proactive and there were changes made last year. You can see that the deductibles increased. We did some design alterations as well. And those changes, yes, generated um the budget that the board approved, but it did really it didn't stop utilization. That's not what it's meant to do. It's meant to create a pairing function between the employee share and employer share
036based upon the district's budget and what the employee is paying. And this year when we first talked to committee on October 8th, we know that more of that is likely to come forward again because when you have a 22% renewal, that definitely impacts uh our budget if the board chooses to access that or will be passed out to employees. We want to make sure that you have an open and transparent discussion on how that works. So that's why we had it at committee and we're also talking about it tonight. We are looking for a little bit of feedback from you if you have some tonight. Uh when we talked at our budget hearing in September, there was discussion about what the amount should be for uh insurance. We also wanted to share that the district
037has done a really good job of trying to remain diligent with the health insurance budget. So we do have a balanced budget. And then thirdly, There is a potential solution that board could consider to offset some of the deductibles through fund 73 as well. Are there any questions that either the committee members or Mr. Black or I could answer for you? >> You can't be the only ones that the only district that has this issue with an increase in premium, right? Have we talked to any other districts what they're doing? Are they just paying more money or are they coming up with better or different solutions or do you know >> I I think that's all of the above. I think all entities go through periods of health insurance difficulty and right now there are
038neighboring districts around us that are dealing with this well and the boards are deciding what makes sense locally to make changes. We tried to get other carriers to bid on us. They were either higher than what we are now or um declined to quote because I'm sure they don't want to put their name on something that they know they have no chance to. We're trying to work on some self-funding options, but when you have high cost claims really hurt your opportunities selfunded. So from a a comparative standpoint locally, we do know that there are neighboring districts that have seen highs as well and they're doing everything that we're trying to do too is how can you get I hate the word creative but how can you make the right decisions at that time moving forward
039for that year and that's just what our mission is and that's where we talked about it at committee and wanted to talk about it tonight and know that when we meet again on Friday we're going to continue to do the same thing. I know it's kind of a talk around to your questions, but >> can you tell us a little bit more about what fund 73 can do for us to help? >> Yes, fund 73 is it's called an other postemployment benefit fund, but you do have the eligibility to use funds to offset HSA contributions is an example that we do believe would fit. The reason why there is a fund balance in fund 73 is there's been significant interest growth in that fund. So remember when the board approved the investment advisor back in
040August we shared that there was an 11% increase in that fund and the prior year was that high. So the value of that fund has grown because of interest or that would be an item that you could consider to offset some of the costs. >> The discussion has been potentially offsetting half the increase through use of other funds >> other as in 73 or just >> Well, this is another thing I was the one that pushed to create it. back in the day. We still don't have nearly the amount of people that are taking advantage of the 403b matching funds that that was a program that we that we started >> a few years back. >> Well, no, that's not through the HSA. That was a that was a separate entity. >> You know, this
041is kind of I think this is a more of a priority than that at the moment. And if if need to be, we could discontinue that 403b and use those contributions to I I'm kind of pro using those funds to contribute into HSA because uh I think I think the the self-control part of it is is is big. People make more responsible decisions when it's up to them. And I I like that. Joe is probably in this pack somewhere, but what is the other post important benefit? What is the approximate current fund level? There's 1.8 million in that fund. >> 1.8 >> and how much >> we're required, aren't we required to keep a certain balance point of that? But what we were talking about is the interest >> of that account. >> What we
042did last year at this because that was a a small discussion that is we got advice from our actuary to say what would be the amount that you would support us using to continue to be funded at a level where we don't create an unfunded liability and I don't I don't have that email with me but I know that it was around $325,000 and the person said yes you could use that if you wish still that be underfunded creating a liability. >> But we we still expect to have ongoing claims against that fund for post-employment benefits that we we offer and continue to offer obligated to pay. >> Well, we don't really the only item that is there that is required to be accounted for is a old life insurance benefit. >> Okay. >> Where
043employees this is a long It was a it was a benefit approved where employees who retired before 2011 were eligible for um a life insurance payout when they would pass away and it would guarantee for life. Most of the values of that policy are around $15,000 and that's how we probably have right now I feel like 60 or so individuals who are there and then that's kind of how you have the plus and minus each year to pay that out. >> So we owe the premiums for those people that still >> are in the in the program and have kept kept that postemployment. >> You are correct. Exactly. So the claims against that as time goes on will get less and less. >> Yes. >> And right now there is no insurance benefit in retirement.
044So >> the liability has not grown. >> Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't grow because people can they can buy it. They can keep it, but they have to pay the premium. >> Friday, Friday morning, we're having another mean 8:00, correct? Yeah. So, we'll go down that path further then, I guess. Um, dental is kind of dental is easy. There is no increase to costs as long as the board is comfortable with a 0 print% increase to that expenditure. Actually would suggest you go into that first as a piece of good news before we got into the health piece. But >> but the dental benefit is a fraction with the >> All right. Um looking for a motion to person to section 19.851A FG and section 120.131C Wisconsin statutes. The board of education will convene in
045close session for the purpose of approving the minutes from an expulsion hearing which was heard in close session. So I have a motion to close session. >> Make a motion. >> I'll second it. >> All in favor? Hi. Hi. >> Oh, we need >> Oh, wait. Roll call on that. >> Yes. >> Chris Martinson. >> Yes. Aim Thor. >> Yes. >> Okay. Board members, please bring your packet into the back room for a brief conversation. [Music]